My Little Pony: Hope is Magic
by XepherFlame
Summary: After leaving Dodge Junction, Lemon Sour finds himself on a train bound to Ponyville, leaving behind his old life. Though the circumstances relating to his sudden departure are kept secret from everyone, Lemon Sour hopes that with a new home comes new beginnings... But he will soon find out that constantly running away will not solve the problems that haunts him...
1. Prologue - Away I Go

"That's enough for today," a woman's voice calls out to the ponies working their shifts, "Why don't y'all hop on off and call it a day?"

Upon hearing those words does the worker ponies stop what they're doing and head on out the room, all tired from a hard day of work. One pony in particular, who's breathing a little more than the others, is a bright yellow pony with a messy, snow-colored mane and a scarf around his neck. Pausing to take a breather, he is the last to leave his station due to his fatigue; being on all four hooves all day isn't easy for the young colt as his job is to power the giant conveyor belt by treading on a giant wheel connected to the side.

After the yellow pony catches his breath, he proceeds to leave through the door like all the other workers when his boss, a red-maned pony with a beauty mark on her left cheek, clops in front of him.

"Going somewhere, Lemon Sour?" she asks the lemon-colored stallion with a raised eyebrow.

"Nowhere in particular," he cocks his head to the side, imitating a shrug as he darts his eyes to the right, "Why do you ask?"

The female pony doesn't say anything at first; she just stares at Lemon Sour with a stare so intense that would've pierced though his eyelids if he had been closing them. Determined to get an answer out of Lemon Sour, she puts him on the spot and continues to imtimidate him with her intense glare. However, after a couple of seconds of awkward silence, with neither Lemon Sour or his boss saying a word, the female pony eventually gives in and lets him go.

"No reason," she continues to stare at Lemon Sour as he trods away, "I was just curious."

Though she doesn't see Lemon Sour gulp his throat in anxiety after narrowly escaping her gaze, she already knows that he's hiding something; her intense staring wasn't just to get him to confess... whatever it is that he did... but to also watch for any cues that would give him away.

And the cue that gave him away was a single bead of sweat that slid down his face.

* * *

"Another Cherry Bomb," Lemon Sour says to the bartender of the Watering Trough Tavern as he slumps over the bar, pushing his empty glass to the side, "And keep them coming!"

As the bartender complies with his request, Lemon Sour couldn't help but pull out his ticket out of this town, literally: in his hooves is a single, one-way train ticket to Ponyville scheduled for today. As a matter of fact, the train is set to depart within a couple of hours, and Lemon Sour's bag is already packed and shoved right underneath his barstool; the only reason he's even at the bar at this moment is because he wants to kill time with a drink rather than waiting at the station.

"Another round," the bartender pony in the vest tuxedo calls out to Lemon Sour as he slides the next shot glass down the bar. Hearing his order, Lemon Sour puts up a hoof to catch the drink but is surprised to see another pair of hooves intercepting it right before it reaches him.

"Cherry Bombs eh?" a familiar voice exclaims loudly, "My favorite! How did you know?" No sooner does Lemon Sour turn his head does he recognize the female pony chugging his drink down her gullet.

"Ch-Cherry Jubilee!?" Lemon Sour panicks as he sees her face upon setting down the shot glass onto the bar, "Wh-What are you doing here?"

"What?" Cherry Jubilee shrugs her slender shoulders as she fixes up the pink scarf around her neck, "Can't a gal go get a drink after a hard day of work?"

"Sure, if the gal actually_ did_ some work," Lemon Sour couldn't help but snark with a smirk out of pure anxiety; he figures that, if she doesn't know, then perhaps he should try to play it cool and make it seem like he's hiding something.

"Oh, hardy har har," Cherry Jubilee responds back with a mock, "You're such a comedian... Or should I say 'magician,' seeing as how you tried to disappear within a blink of an eye."

"E-Excuse me?" Lemon Sour nervously answers with a bead of sweat as the bartender slides him another drink.

"Oh, don't play dumb with me, hon," Cherry Jubilee answers with an almost scolding tone as she pulls out a rolled up scroll, "I read your little 'resignation' letter a little earlier than you would've liked me to."

"Knew I should've put a 'do not open until tommorow' note on it..." Lemon Sour chuckles a bit out of nerves, though none to Cherry Jubilee's amusement; she even glares at him once more for the truth, this time actually succeeding in the process. "Okay, okay," Lemon Sour gives in, "I'm sorry that I didn't tell you I was leaving... Or rather, tell you myself in person that I was leaving."

"Honey, I'm not hurt because you're leaving" Cherry Jubilee puts a hoof on his shoulders as she slumps downward, "I'm just hurt that you would leave without so much as a goodbye; I had thought I meant something to you. Why are you leaving anyway? Do you not like it here? Do you not like the job? Do you not like me?"

"No no no, it's nothing like that," Lemon Sour responds assuringly to Cherry Jubilee's worries, "This city is great, the job is great, even you're great... It's just that... It's just that I have to leave; I can't tell you why, but I just do. I'm sorry, but I can't say anymore than that."

As Cherry Jubilee looks into Lemon Sour's eyes and sees fear welling within them, she tries her best to comfort him. However, without enough information to know what exactly is going on with Lemon Sour, and knowing that he wouldn't answer if she asked, she is at a lost for words that could comfort him. So, instead, she wraps one arm around his shoulder, puts up a hoof into the air, and calls out to the bartending pony for a couple more shots of Cherry Bombs.

"Well, if you're going to go away," Miss Jubilee tells him as he perks his head up, "Then we're going to need tohave a 'going away' party now, won't we?"

* * *

"Ugh... No more..." Lemon Sour starts to feel a bit queasy as he receives another shot glass from the bartender, "I'm starting to feel a little sick."

"Oh come on now," Cherry Jubilee eggs him on as she finishes her 7th drink with no problems (yet), "Have another drink; you can sleep it off in the train ride out of here!"

"Yeah, well, I need to be _on_ the train if I want to sleep on it," Lemon Sour retorts as he pauses for a moment to hiccup, "And I can't do that if I'm passed out in a bar."

"Don't you worry about that," Cherry Jubilee dismisses the notion with a downward hoof motion, "If you pass out, I'll carry you to the train on my back."

"And how will you do that if you're knocked out as well?"

"Honey, you must not know me that well," she cocks her head to the side as she says this, "Trust me: I can handle my drinks. Besides, even if you miss the train ride out of here, you can always catch the next train out of here anyway!"

"I don't have enough money to afford another ticket," Lemon Sour explains as he passes his shot glass to Jubilee as he opts for a glass of water from the bartender.

"Then you just come on back and work for me again!" Cherry Jubilee exclaims loudly as she starts to feel the influence of the drink, "I could use another strong pony like you; who knows, maybe you'll even find your Cutie Mark working at my farm... Blank Flank."

"Don't call me that out loud!" Lemon Sour embarassingly exclaims as he looks left and right to see if anyone heard that, "You know I'm sensitive about that!"

"Aw shucks," Cherry Jubille chuckles, "I think it's cute that you don't have a Cutie Mark."

"Maybe it was cute when I was just a little colt," Lemon Sour reasons, "Not when I'm a fully grown stallion..."

"Fully grown?" Lemon could hear Jubilee snicker, "Oh please, you may not be a colt anymore, but you're certainly no stallion; you still got a lot of growing to do."

"Do I now?" Lemon Sour questions as he raises his glass of water for a swig, "Well, I wouldn't count me out just yet. Who knows? Maybe I'll surprise you..."

"Really now?" Cherry Jubilee flashes a smile, "Doesn't matter anyway; you'll never get the chance to prove it, seeing as how you're leaving and all..." "Shame, really," Jubilee stares at her glass with a melancholy look in her eyes, "To think that I was going to have you pop my cherries."

"Wha-!?" Lemon Sour couldn't resist doing a spit-take all over the innocent bartender, "What?"

"Well, you deserved it," Jubilee tell him, "You are my best worker on the line; it makes sense that I would've promoted you to pop the pits out of the cherries... You know, for my famous maraschino cherries..."

"Oh," Lemon Sour chuckles to himself, "That's what you meant..." At first, Lemon Sour just thought that he was being a pervert until he sees Cherry Jubilee taking much delight in him blushing redder than the Cherry Bombs; something tells him that she intentionally worded her sentence like that on purpose, much to his embarassment.

"Anyway," Cherry Jubilee gulps down yet _another_ drink, "If you need work while you're in Ponyville, you may want to check out Sweet Apple Acres: a pony by the name of Applejack mentioned that her family owns a farm there when she was working for me. It may not be as easy as the work here, but it's a good start to your new life..."

"Sweet Apple Acres..." Lemon Sour repeats as the bartender gives him another glass of water to sip, "Got it."

"Good," Jubilee goes for her next drink, "Oh, and speaking of 'getting it,' doesn't your train leave in a couple of minutes?"

"Wha-!?" Lemon Sour sprays his water all over the bartender once more as he stares at the clock hoisted up on the back wall, "Ah! I gotta bolt!" As Lemon Sour gets up out of his seat, grabs his bag, and makes a beeline towards the door, he immediately stops at the threshold and takes a look back at Cherry Jubilee, who smiles back at him warmly.

"I guess this is goodbye," he says with a hoof scratching the back of his head.

"I guess it is," Cherry Jubilee replies softly, holding back tears as she speaks, "But at least you said goodbye to me in person."

"Yeah," Lemon Sour scoffs at his earlier actions, "It was stupid of me to try to leave a note."

"It sure was," she smiles as she raises a toast with her last drink of the night, "Goodbye, Lemon Sour, and good luck."

With a smile and a nod as the final part of his goodbye, Lemon Sour heads out the door and makes his way to the train station.

* * *

"Whew," Lemon Sour sits on the seat, wiping the beads of sweat off his forehead with his hoof as he catches his breath, "Barely made it."

"Barely made it" is right: not a minute after he gets on does the train's wheels starts rolling down the tracks as the team of stallions pull it from the front. As the cityscape slowly creep away from one side of the window to the next, Lemon Sour couldn't help but take one last look at Dodge Junction as it passes him by.

"Better catch some sleep," he yawns as he pulls his bag up to the window to lay his head upon like a pillow. After finding the perfect place to put it, he snuggles up to his bag, expecting to feel comfort, but is surprised to feel something hard. "What the-?"

Taking his bag off the window to investigate, he opens up the pouch and starts rummaging through his things in order to see what's going on: he doesn't remember packing anything that could be hard, especially since he didn't have much to pack at all... Now that he mentions it, he doesn't recall his bag being this heavy before. Actually, he isn't even sure that this is his bag, since he probably didn't check if it was his, or notice the shift in weight, since he was in a a panic to catch his train on time.

After sticking his hoof into the deepest depths of the bag, he finds the object and pulls it out, revealing something that surprises him: a jar of cherries. But it wasn't just any old jar of cherries: it was a seal-tight glass jar full of Cherry Jubilee's sweet, succulent maraschino cherries that she crafted all by herself in a labor of love. Attached to the side was a tied up note that Lemon Sour unravels and reads to himself:

"Don't go eating these all at once now XOXO - Jubilee"

Though mindful of the other ponies aboard the train, especially since it's late in the evening and the ponies want some sleep, Lemon Sour couldn't help but laugh as he appreciates the gift that Cherry Jubilee leaves him. He may not have known when she implanted it into his bag, nor how did she seeing as how his eyes were on her the whole time, but one thing he does know is that he's glad to have something to remember her by as the train departs to Ponyville.


	2. Chapter 1 - Ponyville Bound

**[Chapter 1 - Ponyville Bound] **

"Don't you ever get tired of running?"

That voice... It's a voice that's all too familiar to Lemon Sour. He has heard it so many times that it might as well become his conscious. As a matter of fact, with his constant changing of homes and friends, it might be the only thing constant in his life. With that in mind, it doesn't surprise Lemon Sour one bit that he finds himself conversing with the voice, humoring it for the nostalgia of something familiar, as he turns to the source amidst the dark abyss he finds himself in.

"Don't _you_ ever get tired of hounding _me_?" Lemon Sour remarks with a hint of distain.

"I am not _hounding_ anypony," the voice snickers back, "I am a mare, after all; mares do not hound."

"Then why don't you gallop up out of here?" Lemon Sour puts a hoof up to shoo her away," Go bother somepony else for a change."

"Aw, you know you're the only pony I have my eyes on..." the voice answers with a smile as the pair of eyes, as well as the horn above, glows red, "And my mark, of course..."

As if right on cue, Lemon Sour immediately feels discomfort on his neck, prompting him to bring a hoof to it. As he presses down on the spot, it glows bright enough to expose itself through the thick layered scarf with a dark, black hue. The mark, in a shape that resembles a black rose, doesn't necessarily hurts Lemon Sour: it only gives him a numbing feeling that immediately fills his head with negativity, his every thoughts now being those of doubt and self-loathe.

"Why don't you just give up?" the voice asks him as he struggles against the thoughts that deludes him, "Make it easier for both of us."

The storm of thoughts whirling around Lemon Sours' head are vicious: if they aren't about how much of a failure he is, or how he's such a lonely loser, then they are of self-degradation, self-hatred, or self-destruction. Lemon Sour tries to resist against the thoughts that swirl in his mind, but no matter how much he shakes his head, screams, or thrash about, his efforts are as futile as a tree trying to stay grounded during a tornado: there is no way that he can fully block out the constant mental abuse.

"Had enough, darling?," the voice calls out as the glowing eyes subsides.

"No," Lemon Sour stupidly bluffs with a smirk, despite his head becoming clear once more, "Of course not: you got anymore? Well, bring it on; I can last the whole night."

"I bet you could," the voice contorts her smile twistedly, "But I wouldn't want to risk breaking my pet too far that it bites back..."

"I'm not anypony's pet," Lemon Sour shouts back, "And I'll certainly never be yours, Doubtress!"

"Oh, but you will be," the mare clops from out of the pitch black abyss to say, "You and _all_ of Equestria..."

The mare that stands in front of Lemon Sour is the Doubtress, a wicked, crimson pink alicorn able to break the will of innocent ponies to the point of "giving up" by twisting their thoughts and using them against them. While she certainly does it for the kicks, being a sadistic mare that she is, the real objective is to fully deprive the pony, or "feed" as she calls it, of all hope: this sends them into a submission through depression, at which point she can siphon out their despair to feed on and become even more powerful.

"You're not going to take over Equestria," Lemon Sour tells her, "I'm not going to let that happen."

"Oh, it's going to happen," the Doubtress remarks with a cool, calm answer, "It's just a matter of whose side will you be on when it does. So how about it, Lemon Sour? Once again I'll offer: why don't you just give in and allow me to feed on your despair?"

"Gee, you make it sound _so_ glamorous... What, I'm supposed to suffer just so I can be your little power source?" Lemon Sour inquires, "Why on Earth would I agree to that?"

"I told you already, I don't need you to be depressed _forever_," the Doubtress decides to explain once more, "I'll only need you to be depressed long enough to power me enough to spread despair all over Equestria; once enough ponies are inflicted with enough bad thoughts and melancholy, the entire world will become my everlasting feed: their hopelessness will give me enough power to continue this cycle forever! And once that happens, I would no longer have need for you to be depressed... In fact, since you helped me to power, I would treat you right as my faithful servant: anything you want in the world... you can finally have."

"That _is_ a tempting offer..." Lemon Sour admits, "But why only offer it to me? Why don't you find some other pony to corrupt for your gain? You know, use _their_ depression as your power source... Not that I would want anypony to be subjected to your mental torture."

"Why?" the Doubtress decides to reveal her reasoning, "Well, it's because you have a lot of potential as a magic catalyst; you're the most powerful source of magic that I have ever seen in all my years of roaming Equestria for fuel... And it'd be a lot easier, and quicker, to break you and take all that power than it would be to siphon it from a couple hundred, if not thousands, of other ponies."

"But I'm not going to break," Lemon Sour stands up to her... metaphorically...

"We'll see about that," she smirks, "I'll admit that you're stronger than any other pony I've tried feeding on, but even you won't last forever. In fact, you're already showing signs of weakness: you're starting to crack under pressure, you're starting to lose hope in the future, and most deliciously, you're starting to doubt yourself..."

"Wh-what are you talking about?" Lemon Sour asks nervously.

"Oh, don't play dumb with me, dear colt," the Doubtress says haughtily, "Didn't you leave Dodge Junction because things weren't going to change for you?"

"What do you mean 'things weren't going to change for me?'" Lemon Sour questions, "You heard Cherry Jubilee: she said if I wasn't leaving that she was going to promote me to cherry pit popper!"

"True," the Doubtress acknowledges, "But as '_glamorous_' as spending the day squeezing the pits out of cherries sounds, we both know that that's not what I'm talking about. We both know the real reason why you left... the real reason you turned tail and ran."

"I don't know what you're talking about," Lemon Sour looks away to avoid eye contact with her, gritting his teeth as he stares at the ground, "I left Dodge Junction to find a new home for myself because I didn't like the whole 'wild west' theme; I am a city pony after all."

"Yeah," the Doubtress shakes her head, "You keep telling yourself that. You know, you can lie to me all you want, but you can't lie to yourself; you know the truth, and you know that I know the truth as well, and as soon as you admit it and allow yourself to drown in despair, I'll be back for my power."

With that, the Doubtress fades away from the pitch black area the two are in, vanishing into the thin air like a warm breath on a cold day.

* * *

"Huh!?" Lemon Sour couldn't help but exclaim loudly as he snaps back into reality.

Taking a look around his surrounding and finding nothing but a couple of ponies staring back at him for his outburst, the dark abyss that enveloped Lemon Sour is now gone. Actually, if one wants to be technical, the dark abyss never truly existed: it was all an illusion that manifests only as the result of a trance that the Doubtress inflicted on Lemon Sour. That means that whole exchange between Lemon Sour and the Doubtress is nothing more than a bad dream... Or, better put, a day dream since, despite not being a least bit "conscious" of the real world, Lemon Sour has been wide "awake" during the whole exchange, staring blankly out of the window whilst under the trance the Doubtress had put him under.

"Argh," Lemon Sour lets out a big groan as he shakes his head in an attempt to "readjust" to the real world since experiencing the illusion feels similar to having an "out-of-body" experience. One would think that, after having these experiences countless other times, he would've been used to it by now... But every single time he goes through these things he feels extremely disorientated, almost to the point of sickness.

"Next stop: Ponyville!" a voice calls out from the intercomm, alerting the passengers on the train to get ready to leave.

Though Lemon Sour's been staring out the window for a good while, it isn't until he snaps out of the trance and regains "consciousness" that he could actually "see" out the window and admire the view: as the train rolls closer and closer to the town past the mountains and forests, Lemon Sour couldn't help but feel the anticipation of arriving in a new city welling up inside him. Although he has moved to countless cities countless times, it's always a thrill to him to see what new place he ends up in, what new dives to hang around in, and most importantly, what new friends he might make.

As the horses pulling the train slows to a complete stop upon arriving at the train station, Lemon Sour quickly gathers his things, which isn't much, and immediately boards off the train: the first one to do so. Not a second sooner does his hoof leaves the car does Lemon Sour smile at his new home, taking in a deep breath to smell the clean air before setting off for a place to stay.


End file.
